Pretty much. Men speed more for example and drive under the influence more often. High mortality risk on those.

Women however tend to be a bit more distracted when driving; they use their phones more often behind the wheel for example. There’s also particular situations that simply happen more to women. I.e. they go grocery shopping and are distracted by the kids in the back seat and hit another car or object in the busy parking lot.

That’s also why innovations like backup cameras and parking sensors are great at reducing those sorts of accidents. But still: tell the wife to put the phones away if she’s driving. For everyone else’s safety too.

Enjoy :D

They don’t list their methodology, so it’s pretty much a made up number.

And yeah, back when you had to add the entire bundle to your account, you’d get a ton of crap bundle games that you’d never play. These days you can generally list the code for others to use.

Like H3AFF-I28Q2-AF4AV

I’m excited as fuck for Deadpool 3! It’s my number one most anticipated movie this year to be honest.

Deadpool 1 was certainly a breath of fresh air for me when it released. A great introduction to a unique character. An antihero with a healthy dose of humor that’s not usually found in other superhero movies. Absolutely loved the fourth wall breaks, loved every character in it, loved the soundtrack…

I got into Deadpool so much, I actually started reading the comics to get more Deadpool :D

I miss forums as well, and I’m actually moving back to them. Back in the early 2000’s, I visited like a dozen forums each day. I was a member of like three watch forums, a camera forum, a Star Trek forum, some gaming forums and others. Just ‘doing the rounds’ kept you busy for a while. People also were insanely knowledgeable on those niche forums, and they all had their own specific culture and flavor to them.

Places like a niche subreddit are… OK at best. They are convenient and easy to visit, but don’t tend to have the level of knowledge and discourse that I generally enjoy. You also run the risk of your sub getting ruined by people who are into the wrong aspects of your particular hobby. For example, on a watch FORUM, the discussions are about design, mechanical features, history, photography, how to repair, etc. etc. On the subreddit, a lot of posts tended to be drive-by posters who ‘found a watch and wanted to know what it’s worth’. or ‘is this fake’. The subreddit didn’t curb that, so eventually I and many others just stopped going there. It was basically too easy for people to post there just because, well, they could. Whereas on an actual watch forum, you can do a bit stricter moderation and the registration requirement weeds out low effort posting.

Some consider that ‘gatekeeping’, but I see it as a valid way of protecting one’s chosen community.

I don’t think I’ve met any Brazilians back in those days; (online) gaming is really expensive there from what I heard, right?

One fun thing in the old COD lobbies was always to teach others slurs and general cursing in your language. I learned how to curse folks out in like 50 languages. Each country also has its own unique style of cursing. We Dutch really like to incorporate diseases for example.

I’m certainly not going to say you’re wrong on that first part. I’ve been online since 1996. At that time, the internet was the domain of white, heterosexual, nerdy, generally well educated guys. And me being a white, heterosexual, nerdy, well educated guy… well… going online felt like coming home. Those were my people. I still really miss those days.

But I also know that the experience of someone not like me would’ve been wildly different. I learned a bajillion slurs on COD lobbies after all. It’s a good thing that more people now feel welcome online, as it led to platform growth and functionality that we otherwise wouldn’t have had if it was just ‘my kind of people’.

The current safe, sanitised, gentrified gaming sphere also has benefits: COD lobbies these days are very pleasant by comparison. You even have to sign a code of conduct to get on multiplayer. It feels more welcoming, less hostile. Of course, companies certainly have been financially incentivized to attract as wide an audience as possible. For example, the very first GTA game sold about 6 million copies. GTA V has sold 200 million. And with ever-increasing development budgets, you can’t afford to cater to a niche, you want to cast as wide a net as possible to recoup those costs.

I miss that era. Companies didn’t mind a bit of edginess and weren’t afraid to market to adults. The console culture itself also isn’t what it used to be.

These days, gaming consoles all need to be safe enough for five year olds to play on them. And it’s caused everything to be just too bland and safe, both in marketing and the console itself. Can’t really have things like Xbox 360 Uno with the live camera feed and no moderation. Or the wholly uncensored COD lobbies.

We should practice the standard health and safety formation, just in case. So we’re properly prepared…

Why would they even care though? Heck, they could be in the same building. It’s not as if Larian’s going to bringing T72 tanks or self-propelled artillery with them to lay siege…

You can’t do that. ‘Cause it’s freaking me out…

https://youtu.be/eLqC3FNNOaI?si=7gT4tdHwlxahWDS3

Minecraft in its early days also had the issue of not really having much in the way of actual gameplay and purpose. It was and generally is still very much a self-guided and self-motivated experience.

Me, I enjoy exploring, building a settlement, refining my base with nice architecture and design… I don’t need a particular mission to enjoy it. Other people don’t really dig that - they’re looking for a more linear, guided experience.

Minecraft is what I like to call a podcast game: I’ll put on a two hour podcast and just go and explore or build without a set goal in mind. I’ve spent entire weekends just digging out vast underground networks. It’s relaxing.

Even back in those early days I could see it had potential and would appeal to people like myself who want a nice, open sandbox to play in. But I never would’ve expected it to be this much of a hit.

Same; I was one of the first buyers. Got a few people interested in the game. It’s wild to imagine now, but at that time nobody had heard of it, obviously. Which meant it was an uphill battle to get them to play it, because ‘the graphics sucked’.

I put thousands of hours into it. It’s still the best value for money game, ever.

I’ll just say: that ‘legendary’ in the title is well-earned. These are some of the best RPG’s ever made in my opinion, certainly when you consider the era they were made in.

They have great characters and writing that sucks you in. You’ll really grow to love some of the characters, especially when you’re spending that amount of time with them. It might be a slower experience than some people prefer, but I really like taking the time to enjoy a good story.

I’m a sucker for bundles like these. They’re awesome when you own the games on other or older platforms, or prefer to have them digitally.

I’m also jealous of people who’ve never owned these games and other bundles like it. They get to experience something for the first time. And no waiting between games like we had to.

The other day I saw a bundle on PlayStation that had both Skyrim and Fallout 4 in it. Both of those I put 500+ hours into. Can you imagine being the guy who’s never played them? That bundle is going to consume their life for the rest of the year if they let it.

Re: edgier Trek:

For me, I feel like we’ve had so much ‘positive utopia’ Trek, that more of the same just gets a bit boring. There’s also the fact that life today is different compared to when Trek first aired. We’re more aware of some of those sharper edges and want to see them represented in media.

From a practical standpoint, there’s also ‘we can, so we do’. When Trek aired on regular TV, you couldn’t drop an F-bomb, much less show actual gritty stuff. With streaming, there’s no reason to hold back. Which gives writers more room to explore.

As a longtime Trek fan, I’m certainly in favor of it. There’s plenty of things to work with; things implied but never really shown. Which is why I also liked more recent Trek projects like Strange New Worlds and Picard. They have a bit more grit to them.

Tarantino’s trek would not have been for everyone… but it certainly would’ve been a massive hit. Even if you hate his other work, you can’t help but be intrigued.

You certainly are allowed to dislike or even hate a Star Trek product. Every fan has things they like or don’t like. Heck, it’s one of the things this fandom is known for!

What I love about LD is the fact that it pokes fun at pretty much every Trek trope there is, while also being proper Trek itself. It’s a fine balance for sure.

Fair enough. Personally, I always stream music through YouTube Music. Never downloaded stuff because I don’t need to. I’ve got fast mobile internet with good coverage and I never really leave my city.

I’m not really into music enough to notice if things disappeared. Can’t say I’ve noticed that, but I’ve heard similar complaints from others. As long as there’s enough 80’s and 90’s bangers, I’m content :D

I wouldn’t necessarily say the best proof (that’s probably things like Spotify and Google Music, services which effectively killed any and all MP3 sharing).

But yeah, the Steam Deck is an awesome platform. It’s great to be able to carry games with you that you normally wouldn’t be able to play portable. It’s also an awesomely capable device for playing ROMS though, if you do decide to sail some seas :D